Monday, 21 March 2011

block-a-palooza - block 16

The final palooza block is finished. A slightly bittersweet sensation, as I have enjoyed this quilt along so much, but on the other hand I have stacks of other projects lined up in my mind and am excited to get started on the next one...

Block 16

This was a fun block to end the quilt along. The scrappy pinwheels on the white background make a fresh addition to the group, and I was able to tie in the main red fabrics from the rest of the blocks.

I constructed the pinwheels slightly differently than detailed in the tutorial. I stumbled across aYouTubevideo by the Missouri Star Quilt Co a couple of months ago and was amazed by their handy tip for "fast and easy" pinwheels. They simply sew two fabric squares face together around all four sides and then cut the square on both diagonals, resulting in four half square triangles. On Friday, I read the HST guest post Christina Lane of The Sometimes Crafterwrote for WhipUpusing the Missouri Star Quilt Co.'s method. She has tackled the quilt math necessary to figure out what size square you need to cut to produce the desired HST. I rounded up to be extra sure and used 4.5 in squares and then squared them all up to 2.5 inches.

I really liked this technique and had no problems at all - the pinwheels pieced easily together with no issues; however, many commenters have pointed out that this method does create triangles with bias edges, so there is potential for stretching. I starched my squares first and very carefully pressed them open and did not have any problems, but I don't know if it was just beginner's luck...I am curious to try this technique again.

Block 5 revisited

After I finished up the block 16, block 5 was still bothering me. I felt the navy was too dominant overall and didn't want this block to be a focal point in the quilt top. I am SO much happier with the new colors - and happy to see that my goose technique has improved since the original block 5! The new block has a softer, sweeter feel than its harsher predecessor.

All 16 blocks !!!

I am curious to see the options for the final design today. The sneak peek with the appliqued flower panel will obviously not work with these blocks, but perhaps one of the variations will be more appropriate.